


Personal Defence

by fawatson



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 11:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elli Quinn and Taura rescue Pel Navarr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Defence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brutti_ma_buoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/gifts).



> Request: Quite different people, in their way, but if you wanted to bring Elli to Cetaganda, do feel free! Otherwise, more on Pel's life and the world of the haut, endlessly fascinating world building and science? Or Elli's spacer life, her missions without Miles?

There were numerous high fives as the soldiers streamed back through the hatch, cracking the seals of their helmets as they did so. There would be much celebration in the mess tonight: the mission a success on all counts and _no_ casualties was not something to be sniffed at. In many ways it had been one of the easiest missions she’d ever undertaken, Quinn thought as she stripped off her battle armour in the command cabin a few minutes later, even if also one of the most peculiar. And that really was saying something, as the Dendarii had been to some very odd corners of the universe and completed some bizarre assignments over the years. However, orders to rescue a Cetagandan Empress were something unexpected, particularly when the orders emanated from Barrayar. Yet, odd though the commission had been, it was not that which had her scratching her head. Nor was it the fact it had all been accomplished with unusual ease, their opponents seemingly in disarray from the moment their ship had been boarded. That the men would be pleased at winning was normal; but it was their vague expressions that had Quinn worried. She'd noticed the moment she'd returned, last to board after the pirate's ship had been evacuated.

Exiting her cabin a half hour later, showered and attired in a fresh grey uniform with white Admiral’s insignia on the shoulder tabs, Quinn found herself turning not to the bridge, but down to the armoury, where Taura was busy directing the cleaning and recharging of weapons. Elli grinned broadly as she listened to the Master-Sergeant ream out a lowly private who had damaged his weapon in the affray. 

“Don’t try to play innocent with _me_ ,” Taura said, tapping a damaged plasma rifle with one claw, I _saw_ you coshing one of those riff-raff with this. It’s a delicate piece of hand artillery, meant to be _fired_ , not used as a club!”

“Yes, Sarge!” The young private had a hangdog expression on his face; but then who wouldn’t have after a scolding from a seven foot tall bio-engineered cat with fangs. 

Quinn interrupted, gesturing to Taura from the doorway, indicating with a nod of her head that she wanted the woman to join her outside. 

“You’ve noticed it too,” Taura said without preamble, when she joined her. 

Quinn nodded, “Let’s walk.” 

She turned toward the infirmary, where a few minutes later they found the Fleet Surgeon, packing away the last of her surgical instruments in sterile containers ready for the ship’s next expedition. She had a somewhat quizzical expression on the face she turned to the door as they entered. 

“Oh,” she said, “surely not you too!”

“Too?” Quinn’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows raised. 

The surgeon grimaced, “I’ve had a steady stream in here of bemused soldiers sent by their commanding officers for various entirely preventable bumps, bruises and scrapes, sustained because they were unable to focus on anything except our rescued cargo. All men though; you’re the first women.” The surgeon looked at the two in front of her, both stunningly beautiful (notwithstanding the fact Taura’s appearance presented a rather unusual type of beauty), both apparently without injury. 

“No, not you,” she acknowledged. “You’ve come _about_ the problem. Well, I have the answer for you in one word: pheromones.” 

“Pheromones?” Quinn ‘s puzzlement was evident. “Those things bugs have?” She vaguely recalled some mention in a long ago science class when she was a teenager (a dirt-sider problem – all the more reason to live in nice clean space.) 

“Yes, but humans have them too; and this is an all too human problem,” explained the doctor, “for all that it appears to have been created in a Cetagandan science lab. You’ll find the cause in _our_ lab down on level C.” 

Taura and Elli Quinn exchanged silent glances, shrugged, then turned in tandem, heading for the laboratory. As they walked, they became aware of a subtle disruption spreading invidiously through the ship. They encountered two crew members humming, smiling inanely. After confiscating the arc-welders the two men had been casually wielding without safety equipment, the Admiral and Master-Sergeant increased their walk to a quick jog. The lab was just round the corner; two crewman ostensibly on guard outside the lab door, disengaged from a passionate embrace at Taura’s best parade ground dressing down. 

The lab was locked from the inside; but Quinn’s command key carried the door’s master override. A tall honey blonde haut turned and frowned her displeasure when they entered. She might have been called ‘willowy’ except for her commanding presence. Taura remembered an exposition from Ekaterin about the trees she had planted round a pond at Vorkosigan Vashnoi as a part of some reclaiming project – willow trees bend. Taura just knew this woman didn’t. 

“Interruptions won’t make the solution come any faster, you know,” Pel warned, “if anything, you’ll just slow us down.” 

Her haut companion, somewhat older, with long dark hair streaked with silver, but nonetheless equally beautiful, never even looked up from the machinery that filled the lab tables. Clearly some sort of experiment was in progress; from the blinking lights and intent look of the scientist in charge, it had reached a critical stage. A buzzer sounded, and she hastily placed a rubber tube attached to one end of a machine into a flask, watching intently as a clear liquid dripped forth. It wasn’t water; Quinn wasn’t sure what it was; but water didn’t glow like that. 

She shook her head slightly, dragging her attention from the flask back to the woman she had been ordered to rescue: the haut Pel Navarr. When Miles had talked about this woman he’d been admiring, but had also sounded a little unnerved. It took a lot to make that machiavellian little man uncertain. Though having met Pel now she had a better appreciation of why. It was all in the genetics, he’d said, dismissively, inhuman genetics, though he’d added the haut didn’t meddle with the animal genome. Somehow, having met her first haut lady, Quinn thought it wasn’t just a question of breeding. 

Taura and Pel were eyeing one another in fascination. 

“Which Jacksonian House created you?” Pel asked directly. 

“Bharaputra.” 

“Madame Lotus used to do lovely work,” Pel nodded, “though, at times, somewhat... imaginative.” It was clear from her warm smile at Taura that Pel’s criticisms were reserved for the creators rather than the Sergeant. 

“House Bharaputra suffered some reverses after Miles rescued me from Jackson’s Hole.” 

Pel nodded again, before turning her attention to Quinn. “You are in charge, I presume?”

“I think there could be some debate about that,” Quinn retorted, “given the effect you are having on my crew.” 

“The difficulty,” Pel said, “is caused by the release of one of my personal defences during your recent sortie. You liked the disruption it caused our kidnappers at the time. However....” 

She paused to look round as another buzzer sounded at the other end of the lab table and the dark-haired Cetagandan doctor sprang to place a test tube beneath another piece of tubing, this time one leaking a shimmering pink liquid. 

“There are some lingering effects which no doubt are hampering the efficiency of your crew, or at least, the male members of the crew – who probably number in the majority?” 

Quinn inclined her head in agreement. 

“It is particularly effective in the closed system of a space ship,” Pel allowed, “utilising, as it does, the air circulation system. Unfortunately, inevitably, a little of it soaked into our clothes. While your men remained suited they were impervious; but on their return, once de-armoured, they began to succumb. No matter, as you can see.” 

She gestured at the doctor who was now pouring the pink liquid into the clear. Quinn watched, fascinated as the two formulas combined into bright green vapour that swirled upward toward an air vent – no paint set she had had as a child had ever made that colour. 

“Your life support system should take care of the rest. I would estimate in, perhaps, twenty minutes. It was just a minor self-defence strategy, after all, avoiding the necessity for undue violence.” Pel gave a delicate shudder at the very thought. 

Quinn, trained to a high degree in the martial arts, who had spent the last ten years fighting repeated battles; and Taura, who owed her very existence to one potentate’s paranoid obsession with the quest for the super-soldier, gaped openly. 

Pel smiled serenely at them, “Now that’s all done with, shall we take tea?”


End file.
